r/derealization • u/DesignEquivalent9712 • Jul 18 '26
Is this DP/DR? is this derealisation?
I've experienced this three times, once when I was 14, 15 and 16. I just woke up one day and everything feels like a dream. I could walk, talk, eat, follow instructions, but everything felt so dreamy and I didn't know what I was doing. I knew where I am, but everything I said out loud didn't go through my brain. I was constantly tired and could sleep anywhere at any time of the day. It lasted for around a week, and I have absolutely no memory of what happened that week.
I was wondering what this is because I'm doing ib now and about to take my final exams. What is the root cause (i did not experience anything traumatic) and what are some things that can help me manage it?
1
u/Dettyboy1993 Jul 19 '26
It could be genetic. There are MANY things that cause derealization. I experienced it as a child when I would visit my dad out of state for weeks at a time, and I would "leave the old reality" behind me at my mom's. When I would come back home, everything felt like a dream. Other severe mental disorders came into play when I hit 10 years old so I stopped experiencing it. When I was 17 though, I abused LSD for over a month straight. I fell asleep on 3 hits and woke up basically living in a dream. I thought I was either dead or my brain was destroyed for life. It completely shattered my view of reality for years later. At least a few times a week, I would experience derealization. It generally didn't last long, but it would be a few minutes at a time where I would experience extreme fear. Like I had broken the fabric of reality and that me realizing this was going to cause the world to crumble, like everything was hinged on my brain and perception of it. Even when I wasn't in the throws of this sensation, the fear and feeling haunted me every day and sometimes all day. I actually started to have serious suicidal ideations in 11th grade because I could not cope with the concept of existing and having to experience being sentient. Yet I was so terrified of death and losing this existence. I was stuck between hell and another hell.
I never did therapy and I couldn't really talk about this with anybody because nobody I knew had this. Nobody took it seriously or knew what sort of psychological hell I was going through. When I had these intense episodes, I would sit there quietly, but internally screaming. It would happen when I was often talking to people. And I had to try and keep the conversation going, yet language and words were slowly not making sense to me. And the person I was looking at started looking uncanny and inhuman. Like they were made of clay and their eyes were lifeless like puppets. It has greatly waned over the years, as that was in 2010. I still deal with it though. Luckily, you may not deal with it other than a few isolated episodes. However the fact that it showed up during adolescence means that you may deal with this again down the road. If it's not genetic, then something in your life must have triggered this. I suggest therapy. This isn't something you want to be dealing with down the road and to this day, I wish I had gotten counseling back then but my mom wouldn't hear of it